‘It keeps me going’: Keely Hodgkinson fuelled by pressure in World Indoor title bid

The 20-yar-old is favourite for the World Indoor Championship title in Belgrade

Keely Hodgkinson won 800m Olympic silver last year. (Martin Rickett/PA) (PA Archive)

Keely Hodgkinson insists she can handle the pressure and will use it to fire her to World Indoor Championships glory.

The 20-year-old is overwhelming favourite for the 800m title in Belgrade this weekend.

It comes after a stunning last year where she became the first British woman to break a world under-20 record for 36 years, running the 800m in one minute 59.03 seconds, winning 800m European Indoor gold and claiming a stunning Olympic silver in Tokyo.

Hodgkinson knows she is under the spotlight – especially as one of the few successes of a injury-hit and disappointing Tokyo Games for Team GB’s athletics squad – and is ready to deal with it.

“It keeps me going. I look at it as pressure and expectation – although it is there it fuels me rather than pulls me down,” said the British champion, who races in the heats in Serbia on Saturday.

“Everything that happened meant it was a really great year and it’s great I have an Olympic medal to my name but it’s a new year and it doesn’t mean I’m going to get a gold this year. I have to work for it.

“That’s the approach to have, 2021 is something I can look back on when I’ve retired.

“Now I expect more of myself. I expect times to be quicker, more consistency, I want to target the bigger races – in the Grand Prix and Diamond Leagues.

“I want to be coming higher, there were a lot of fourth and fifths last year. I want to be winning them now. That’s how the mentality has changed, trying to come up with better results.”

It keeps me going. I look at it as pressure and expectation – although it is there it fuels me rather than pulls me down,

Keely Hodgkinson

Hodgkinson has already accomplished one of her 2022 goals by breaking the British indoor record in Birmingham in February but has several other targets, having written them down at the start of the year.

One of those is becoming the first British woman to win the 800m world indoor title, which would go one better than coach Jenny Meadows’ silver in 2010.

“I did write down ‘world champion’. So that is an expectation for me. Hopefully I can go back and tick it off when I get home,” she said, with the World Championships in Eugene also in July.

“But if not, then it is what it is. This year I’ve set some goals but obviously it just depends on how the body is and how I am. But they’re pretty big – they are bigger than last year. So we’ve got some ticking to do.”

Katarina Johnson-Thompson, a late entry into the British team, defends her pentathlon title from 2018 on Friday while Daryll Neita is looking to build on last year’s promising form when she races in the 60m.